Re: bDAO Multi Sig Signers : Bankless Africa Optimism Campaign Report

General
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Background - BanklessDAO still holding Bankless Africa OP campaign funds

Access this report directly in this document Bankless Africa Optimism Campaign Report - Google Docs

In light of Bankless Africa’s current situation, where funds are locked up with BanklessDAO as a result of decisions made by Multi-Signature Signers, this report endeavors to achieve the following objectives:

  1. To provide clarity regarding the execution of Bankless Africa’s Optimism campaign to Multi-Signature Signers who may not be fully informed about the campaign’s progress.
  2. To address and refute certain arguments made by Multi-Signature Signers in support of withholding funds.
  3. To facilitate the release of funds.

This campaign was executed by Bankless Africa as part of a larger content initiative by BanklessDAO and affiliate projects to spread the optimistic vision and educate diverse audiences on the opportunities Optimism provides. The focus for Bankless Africa was to create quality and relevant content targeted towards the African crypto community, explaining the value of Optimism and Layer 2 (L2) solutions. [FINAL] BanklessDAO’s Global Campaign to spread the Optimistic vision - ARCHIVED & OLD Missions - Optimism Collective

Campaign Objectives

  • Spread awareness of Optimism among the African community.
  • Educate the community about the benefits of L2 solutions, with specific emphasis on accessibility and participation.
  • Onboard users to the Optimism ecosystem through insightful and practical content

Audience

Primary Audience: The African crypto community, including enthusiasts and developers curious about L2 scalability.

Secondary Audience: Broader web3 and tech-savvy individuals looking to explore decentralized solutions.

Content takeaways

  • Bankless Africa created the most diverse set of content including newsletters, articles and podcasts in the campaign
  • These contents were further augmented with social media posts across different platforms.
  • These contents were also shared across multiple large crypto communities in Africa.
  • We also created practical content that guided users towards onboarding activities such as onramping to Optimism. Cross the bridge - L2 on-ramping in Africa — Blocscribe

Campaign execution

The campaign focused on a diverse content approach, utilizing blog publications, newsletters, and podcasts to engage different segments of the audience. Below is a summary of each deliverable

Content Specification
Deliverable Content Type Deliverable Objective Title Link to Work
1 Blog publication Provide an overview of the value of crypto to Africa.

Gradually introduce new audience to the value propositions of cryptos - L1s and L2s

Present the challenges faced by L1s		 The Great Promise - Crypto & Africa The Great Promise - Crypto & Africa — Blocscribe
2 Blog Publication Build off of previous blog

Present L2s as key solutions to relevant L1 problems such as fees.


Present the value proposition of L2s for users.

Provide a quick overview of Optimism and use it as an example of L2		 Rescue chains - L2s, meet the Phoenix Rescue chains - L2s, meet the Phoenix — Blocscribe
3 Podcast Provide a brief historical context of why traditional finance has failed Africa.

Make the case for crypto provides a great opportunity as a novel financial system that can work for Africa.

Build up to why L2s play a great role for crypto in Africa.		 The Great Promise - Africa and Crypto https://open.spotify.com/episode/4H9va23dz3F9eijDyaQYiJ?si=990e9c75d2a946e2
4 Blog Publication Provide a practical step by step guide to onramping to Optimism for users across Africa Cross the bridge - L2 on-ramping in Africa Cross the bridge - L2 on-ramping in Africa — Blocscribe
5 Newsletter publication Provided a brief overview of what users can do on Optimism The Optimistic Economy : What Africans can do on Optimism L2 Sovereign Frontier | Substack
6 Podcast Provide insights about L2s and why they are ideal blockchains for the everyday user in Africa The Case for L2s in Africa https://open.spotify.com/episode/1HQhCkjRFftZjoY1g3xggg?si=9c0a8f2666cd43d4
7 Podcast Provide insights about decentralized governance in the general sense.

Use Optimism as a case study.

Explore and provide insights about parts of Optimism governance

Peak the interest of listeners about decentralized governance and participating in them.		 Exploring Decentralized Governance https://open.spotify.com/episode/5LRISlBewUmd4rn5hY41dz?si=8839dc7a2fae47e0
8 Newsletter Publication Provide an overview of the Superchain

Provide insights about how builders in Africa can join the superchain whether by deploying their own L2s, building dApps or contributing generally, e.g in governance.		 Why Scale apart, when we can scale together: The future is Super! Sovereign Frontier | Substack

BanklessDAO Multi Sig Signers Concerns - All addressed by the DAO collectively.

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It’s important to highlight that the DAO has already addressed most of these concerns, with the community voting in favor of distributing funds to all the projects that participated in the campaign accordingly. However, despite this collective decision, some of the Multi-Sig Signers continue to disregard the DAO’s consensus.

For a comprehensive overview of the discussion that addresses many of the concerns from the Multi-Sig Signers, please refer to this post: Funding Our Shared Future: OP Distribution Discussion.

For the final decision made collectively by the DAO, see this proposal :arrow_down:

Proposal to Disburse OP Received for Optimism 2023 Collective Intents Campaign

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Addressing BanklessDAO Multi Sig Signers Concerns

  1. It’s not possible for them to judge the quality, and thus they cannot disburse funds.
  2. No one actually checked the quality of the work before disbursing the funds.

The quality of work was the responsibility of projects and teams that actually executed the work. No where as part of the overall campaign execution terms was it stated that BanklessDAO Multi Sig signers were tasked with checking the quality of output for the campaign.

Bankless Africa has provided links to the work done, we are more than happy to get feedback from any of the Multi Sig Signers that have decided to pick the role of quality control officers after 1 year of the campaign about whether what we shipped qualified as quality work per their quality framework.

Questions to BanklessDAO Multi Sig.

  1. Was the quality of the other works for which funds where disbursed judged?

  2. How was it judged?

  3. What criteria was used for judging the quality?

  4. Some multisig members asked native speakers they trust about the output of the work, and the results were mixed.

This does not apply to Bankless Africa as we did not do translation.

  1. Many groups have received retrofunding and grant, but none have remitted funds back to the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO).

Bankless Africa has previously remitted 10% of its grants to BanklessDAO. However, the Optimism retrofunding case was unique and sensitive. Remitting RPGF (Retroactive Public Goods Funding) to BanklessDAO in the same round in which BanklessDAO participated as an organization was considered an ethical risk and a potential sybil attack on Optimism retrofunding. After extensive discussions, it was collectively decided that remitting funds in this context was not feasible, as doing so could harm the DAO’s reputation and jeopardize its ecosystem.

Ornella did a great job of providing a summary about the decision

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  1. This is exactly the reason why the DAO was unsustainable in the past, so the multisig (which is responsible for sustainability) is hesitant to continue on this path.

Bankless Africa has always advocated for the sustainability of the DAO by being one of the projects that strongly advocated for and remitted 10% of grants to the DAO in the past.

Bankless Africa is therefore not in the category of projects that never remitted anything to the DAO.

  1. All groups who didn’t get retrofunding were disbursed funds

Bankless Africa is concerned that other groups received their funds without being subjected to additional scrutiny, while Bankless Africa is facing delays. This disparity in treatment is inconsistent with the principles of fairness and transparency that the DAO upholds.

Next Steps: Request for Fund Release

Bankless Africa has made every effort to address the concerns raised by the Multi-Sig Signers, including providing a detailed overview of the campaign, the work delivered, and the rationale behind past decisions regarding the Optimism retrofunding. Given that other projects have received their funds, and that Bankless Africa has fulfilled all of its obligations transparently, we respectfully urge the Multi-Sig Signers to disburse the allocated funds without further delay.

To ensure the integrity and fairness of the DAO’s processes, we believe it is vital that the community’s collective decision is honored, and funds are released to all teams that successfully completed their assigned work, including Bankless Africa.

We welcome any additional feedback and are prepared to collaborate constructively to bring this matter to a close.

We look forward to your timely action in disbursing the funds and thank you for your attention to this matter.

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Very solid rationale here. I am (and always have been) in favour of disbursement of these funds.

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This is same case for bankless Malayalam too. We toiled our effort and our transaction got declined at last moment. In IMN we had a clear procedure on how the op campaign should be held and every language node worked unanimously for this. Every proof for this is there in the channel itself. At last some nodes get it, some nodes don’t without any individual clarification.

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We all are saling in the same boat. Bankless Bengali Node was active since 3 years producing pods on youtube and Twitter threads . In this case we have also submitted every proof of translation with organic reaches to audiences and followed every step marked by the Project coordiantors Still our fair share has been halted.

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Thanks for your thoughtful post TD. As I have indicated to all MS signers who asked me, I 100% support this distribution and am disappointed that the transaction was declined. I would love to see more transparency from the MS in terms of their rationale and voting process.

A good start would be a Forum post by a member of the MS attested to by all MS members as to which disbursements were made and why, and which disbursements were declined and why.

I find it very disheartening; I’m sure you and others who worked on the BA/PP portion of the campaign are simply outraged, justifiably so.

The will of the community is clear. The work was done. Disburse the proceeds.

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same for Bankless Ukraine, hope we will solve this issue ASAP.

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What should happen in the future is this:

Be more clear about criteria that warrants payment in the future.

I’m going to call the elephant in the room. There has been a past practice of paying for subpar work in the previous DAO. Hopefully Black Flag DAO will change that behavior. I assume that is coming.

Subpar work is also subjective. One person may think the work is solid. Another person may think it’s trash.

What was unfortunate here is that people may think this work is sub par, and that’s why they aren’t paying. However, that was not in the original agreement.

In the future, be very clear on what criteria is needed to be paid.

I saw the snapshot vote that was unanimous. (I have to wonder where the apathy was in that vote, but that’s another story for another day)

Finally, I’ve seen how some people (who seem to be fighting right now) who are involved in this fight can put amazing effort into fighting to change a negative into a positive, but that same effort is not always there in the actual product.

However, an agreement was made to pay for work completed. The work was completed, and the reward was given. If folks are double dipping (tbh, I do wonder that), it sucks, but it was not considered in the original agreement.

I think it should be paid as it was voted to be paid, but the scrutiny into future projects and future endeavors need to be increased exponentially.

If folks feel that some of these groups should not have been paid, yet they did not vote accordingly, that’s terrible, but you will now remember that for the future.

Don’t get burned twice, but disburse the funds.

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you addressed all issues set by multisig

almost all nodes have this same issue, Banklessadria as well
hope that it will resolve soon and in a good fashion

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